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Senior Project Part II: Creating a Line.

A lot of you were interested in seeing how my senior project is coming along for my fashion merchandising degree. I shared the first part a few weeks ago here, and wanted to update you on the next stage of my progress!

The second part of my project following compiling customer research, upcoming F/W 15/16 trends, and then adaptation for my retailer, Anthropologie, is to create a line that would essentially be sold in stores.

First I came up with a color and print story. These colors are partly based on Pantone predictions, as well as, hues that reflect the mood and my inspiration of my concept. Colors are named after famous '70s icons.

Then comes the fabrics! My fabrics are chosen for the weight and usability they provide for different garments in my line. It wouldn't make sense to have all chiffons if I were to do garments like dress pants or jackets: those need more structured fabrics! You'll see in the following the board a break down of my fabrics that would be given to the manufacturer when the products are to be produced. The fabric price is calculated by the key stone method: so you take what the fabric would cost in store, and divide that by two to get the whole sale price manufactuers use.

Next is the line creation! Product developers create flats, which are technical designs for garments that manufacturers need. Flats are included in spec sheets that have the actual measurements for garment creation, but that's not something we had to do for this project. Here are a few of my style sheets for my ten piece collection so you can visualize how they're put together.

Following line creation we had to pick five key items from our ten that would be used as key pieces for the collection. Key pieces are ones retailers believe will be most versatile and best selling in the line.

Then, we were to make five outfits that could be put together using these key items. Here are a few of mine.

And that's my part two! I know it may seem like a lot of this is easy or just making things up, but there's a lot of research that goes behind these decisions. Everything from the colors, fabrics, silhouettes, prices, and pieces are picked for very distinctive reasons. These are just the visuals of my project, but there of course is a lot of referenced research writing that goes into our paper justifying our buying decisions.

The next part of the project (which I just turned in yesterday!) is the buying plans. A lot of math and calculating is involved, but it's interesting to see the process buyers go through in order to get your clothes to the stores.

Hope you all enjoy this! It's something I've been working really hard on and am proud of. Let me know if you all have any questions about studying fashion in college-- I'd love to answer them! x

I’m Lauren. A 24 year old Ohioan living in Brooklyn, NY and the blogger behind this nook of the internet. This is the place where I write out my soul, bare my heart, and welcome you to do the same. Grab a warm cup of something and stay awhile. x